


Learn to Survive

by glamaphonic



Series: Old Moon Fades [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Reality, Canon Character of Color, Dystopia, Established Relationship, Female Character of Color, Future Fic, Gen, POV Character of Color, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:48:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glamaphonic/pseuds/glamaphonic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rhythms of Zuko's body refuse to cooperate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learn to Survive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wildgoosery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildgoosery/gifts).



> Takes place approximately six years prior to Old Moon Fades.

It took Zuko two months to readjust to life at sea.

Mai, with a full three years less sailing experience, took five days to begin ghosting through the corridors of the ship as though she had always been there.

The rhythms of Zuko's body, however, refused to cooperate.

He wasn't ill, only restless, out of synch, and so for weeks, he still lay awake every night and waited until Mai's soft breaths were long and deep. Then, he slipped out of their bed, ignored the night crew (who quickly learned to ignore him as well) and stood on the deck, staring out at the indistinguishable horizon.

At thirteen, he had done the same, but back then he knew what he was imagining in the distance somewhere past the stern. When Zuko was thirteen, he still had a home. Painfully distant and made up of memories that were never as crisp and vibrant as he wanted, but still extant, something that he could strive to return to.

He'd never expected to think that the world was kinder then. Of course, he'd never expected to build a home and then have it taken away.

The familiar canting of the ship beneath his feet and the cool, salty air seemed inherently wrong to him. He had achieved solidity, stationary and comforting, and he no longer possessed a child's hope to bear him up in its absence. Neither could he afford despair.

The past was no more, so unattainable as to not be worth looking backwards at all, and the future held nothing comparable to what he lost. He listened to the quiet sounds of the ship and closed his eyes against the unyielding darkness, knowing that his world had become one with only a single choice available to him.

It took Zuko two months to drudge up the will to move on.


End file.
